💥 Airwallex ambush
A good old-fashioned Twitter rant by a prominent US venture capitalist has dragged long-simmering questions about Airwallex’s ties to China into the open.
Keith Rabois is hardly an independent observer when it comes to the Australian-founded global payments fintech Airwallex.
The prominent US venture capitalist and former PayPal executive is an investor in Stripe and Ramp, two heavyweights which go head-to-head with Airwallex in payments and corporate spend.
Even so, his explosive comments this week about Airwallex's connections to China are significant — and they have clearly struck a sensitive nerve in the Australian startup and VC community.
Airwallex has strong backing from local venture capital. Blackbird and Airtree joined the company's $300 million Series F round in May this year — with Blackbird admitting the investment was correcting its "most expensive mistake" after passing on the startup in 2016. It also gave Airwallex a shoutout at its recent investor day as one of its new stars.
